1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an embroidery sewing machine that stitches an embroidery pattern by attaching an object subjected to embroidery, such as fabric, to an embroidery frame and moving the embroidery frame in X- and Y-directions with respect to a needle that reciprocates vertically at a fixed position. More particularly, the present invention relates to an embroidery sewing machine capable of specifying an embroidery stitching resume position by directly touching a desired point on an embroidery pattern displayed on a display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
An embroidery sewing machine, such as a sewing machine with an embroidery function or an auto-embroidery machine, has a storage device that stores coordinate data of an embroidery pattern for each stitch ordinal number. When a trouble such as thread breaking or bobbin running out occurs during stitching of an embroidery pattern using such an embroidery sewing machine, the machine skips a few to a dozen of stitches from when the trouble is detected to when the machine stops.
To complete the embroidery pattern, the embroidery machine, while remaining inactive, needs to move only the embroidery frame to a coordinate position at a stitch ordinal number where the trouble, such as thread breaking, occurred.
In this case, the machine adjusts the resume position for the embroidery frame by repeating a reverse operation (frame reverse) in units of a few stitches in order to reverse the embroidery frame to the embroidery stitching resume position or by repeating a forward operation (frame forward) in units of a few stitches in order to forward the embroidery frame from the start point of the embroidery pattern to the embroidery stitching resume position.
A known embroidery sewing machine disclosed by Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 1-223993, for example, is capable of reversing or forwarding the coordinate position of an embroidery frame by one stitch or an arbitrary number of stitches by pressing a frame reverse key or a frame forward key.
However, the user of the embroidery sewing machine disclosed by Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 1-223993 is unable to see which position the coordinate position of the specified number of stitches is on the actual embroidery pattern, simply by specifying the number of stitches with the use of the frame reverse key or the frame forward key.
To solve this problem, a known embroidery sewing machine disclosed by Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-57173, for example, enables the user to easily specify an embroidery stitching resume position while looking at an embroidery pattern displayed on a screen of a display device when embroidery stitching is interrupted by a trouble such as thread breaking, and to specify the embroidery stitching resume position while looking at the embroidery pattern enlarged and displayed, as needed, on the display device.
However, the embroidery sewing machine disclosed by Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-57173 is incapable of accurately specifying the embroidery stitching resume position simply by enlarging and displaying the embroidery pattern on the display device when the embroidery pattern displayed on the screen of the display device includes a plurality of partial patterns (hereinafter referred to as “layers”) and stitches in different layers or distant (in terms of the stitch ordinal number) stitches in the same layer are concentrated at a position to be specified.
In particular, as illustrated in FIG. 23A, to stitch an embroidery pattern including a first layer E and a second layer F which are adjacent to each other by forming mat-type stitches S1 and S2 in a horizontal direction, coordinate data for moving the embroidery frame in the X- and Y-directions is first adjusted to a sewn state illustrated in FIG. 23A. The actually sewn first layer E and second layer F pucker in the horizontal direction, and accordingly a gap G where there is no thread is generated between the first layer E and the second layer F, as schematically illustrated in FIG. 23B.
To prevent the gap G, the actually used coordinate data includes an overlap H where adjacent portions of the first layer E and the second layer F overlap, as illustrated in FIG. 23C. By including this overlap H, the gap G caused by puckering is resolved, and the embroidery pattern including the first layer E and the second layer F which are beautifully adjacent to each other is sewn, as illustrated in FIG. 23A.
When the overlap H included in the coordinate data is specified as the embroidery resume position, since the two layers E and F overlap to form the embroidery pattern, there is a need to appropriately display on the screen of the display device the resume position serving as a candidate from among concentrated stitches.
The user needs to pay careful attention to the position to touch on the embroidery pattern displayed on the screen in order to accurately specify the embroidery stitching resume position on the screen of the display device.